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Willie Perdomo
Willie Perdomo is a prize-winning Nuyorican American poet and a children's book author. Life Perdomo grew up in predominantly Spanish East Harlem, New York City. His father had emigrated from Puerto Rico in his early 20s.http://www.wgbh.org/pages/laplaza/feature_article?item_id=2122999 | Interview with Ilan Stavans Willie attended public schools until 6th grade, when he won a scholarship to Friends Seminary, a private Quaker school in lower Manhattan.http://www.childrenslit.com/childrenslit/mai_perdomo_willie.html | Childrenslit.com Biography of Willie Perdomo By his senior year he was published in the New York Public Library publication New Youth Connections. After graduating from Friends Seminary, he moved to nearby Ithaca College and studied a variety of subjects. He lives in New York City and is working on his next project, Emergency Money. Perdomo is co-publisher of Cypher Books, a publisher of today's most necessary poetry. He is the author of Where a Nickel Costs a Dime (Norton, 1996),http://www.wwnorton.com/catalog/fall95/031383.htm | Willie Perdomo's author page at Norton Poets online Postcards of El Barrio (Isla Negra Press, 2002), and Smoking Lovely (Rattapallax Press, 2003),http://www.rattapallax.com/perdomo.htm | Willie Perdomo's author page at Rattapllax Press which received a PEN American Center Beyond Margins Award.http://www.pen.org/page.php/prmID/280 | Pen America Beyond Margins Awards page His children's book, Visiting Langston, received the Coretta Scott King Honors. Perdomo was a Woolrich Fellow in Creative Writing at Columbia University. He is co-founder/publisher of Cypher Books and teaches in New York City. Performance He was a member of the 1991 Nuyorican Poetry Slam teamAptowicz, Cristin O'Keefe. (2008). Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam. New York City: Soft Skull Press. "Chapter 14: First and Always; Graduates from the NYC Poetry Slam's First Wave" ISBN 1-933-36882-9. and has performed his poetry on PBS' The United States of Poetry and HBO's Def Poetry.http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2029167 | Willie Perdomo' page on IMDB.com He first read poetry aloud on a mic for the Nuyorican Poets Cafe at age twenty-two.http://www.mipoesias.com/2004/interview.htm | 2004 Interview with Mipoesias Magazine Despite being featured on many documentaries about poetry in performance, Willie Perdomo considers the performance to be secondary to the writing and rejects the performance poet label. He does, however, feel that powerful oral delivery of his poems can bring his words to more people.http://writersatcornell.blogspot.com/2007/08/interview-willie-perdomo.html | 2007 interview with Cornell University (podcast) He was also a collaborating artist in Rhythmicity at The Humana Festival of New American Plays (2002-2003 season). Writing Perdomo writes about the issues of East Harlem such as race, violence, addiction, and poverty. He often employs hip-hop rhythms, spanish words, and a politically-motivated anger. While race and culture are important to his Nuyorican poetry, he admits that his work is representative of himself, not his whole culture. In his own words, "I'm not here to represent a whole race of people. I can't do that." His literary influences range from Langston Hughes and Piri Thomas to Rilke and William Carlos Williams. He describes his poetic prowess to lie in the "ability to be universal without having to sacrifice the power of that East Harlem idiom." Recognition Perdomo was is a Pushcart Prize nominee,http://spindlezine.com/index.php/issues/2007-pushcart-prize-nominees.html | List of Spindle's 2007 Pushcart Prize Nominees a recipient of a Woolrich fellowship in creative criting at Columbia University and a 2-time New York Foundation for the Arts Poetry fellow. the recipient of a poetry fellowship in 2001 and a fiction fellowship in 2006. His debut collection, Where a Nickel Costs a Dime, was shortlisted for the Norma Farber First Book Award; his 2nd, Smoking Lovely, won the PEN Beyond Margins Award; and his 4th, The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon-Bon, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.Bio, Willie Perdomo. Web, Nov. 7, 2015. Publications Poetry *''Where a Nickel Costs a Dime''. New York: Norton, 1996. *''Postcards of El Barrio''. San Juan, PR: Isla Negra Editores, 2002. *''Smoking Lovely''. New York: Rattapallax Press, 2003. *''The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon''. New York: Penguin Poets, 2014. Juvenile *''Visiting Langston'' (illustrated by Bryan Collier). New York: Holt, 2002. *''Clemente!'' (illustrated by Bryan Collier). New York: Holt, 2010. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Willie Perdomo, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Nov. 7, 2015. Audio / video *''Mad Alex Presents: Happy hour reading at Biblio's'' (cassette). 1994. See also *Nuyorican poets * List of U.S. poets References External links ;Poems *Two poems by Willie Perdomo at Bomb magazine ;Audio / video *Willie Perdomo reads "Poet in Harlem" (text & audio) *Willie Perdomo at YouTube ;Books *Willie Perdomo at Amazon.com ;About * Willie Perdomo profile at the Academy of American Poets *Willie Perdomo at the Poetry Foundation *Willie Perdomo at the Internet Movie Database *Willie Perdomo Official website Category:American poets Category:American children's writers Category:American people of Puerto Rican descent Category:Living people Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Puerto Rican writers Category:21st-century poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets Category:Nuyorican poets